Watch This Space!

So much going on, so little time!

But now that my move is almost complete, I'll be writing again, and that means more posts over here!

To start things off by way of a preliminary announcement, I've done a major edit of the "First Diary" portion of my Diana's Diary blog and uploaded it to Lulu. I've ordered a print and if I like the results, I'll make it available to anyone who would like a copy.

I tightened the language, eliminated inconsistencies and tried to get rid of all the redundant information that was necessary to the blog format, where people might start reading anytime. The book version also has a lot fewer pictures, in an effort to save page space. Even so, it's not a small book. If I end up making it available for purchase, it will therefore be at cost.

I'll also start working again on the "Second Diary" of the blog, which has been in unintended hiatus for a little while. I do have a plan for how her story will end, it's not for awhile yet, and I'll be getting back on track with it very soon-- if not this weekend, for sure by the next.

On tap for this fall, I'll possibly be joining my friend Thomma in doing NaNoWriMo or the fall Seventy Days of Sweat. I'm looking forward to working on some fresh material. And I'm also going to start work on a cleanup of an older novel that I believe is basically sound but could use some editing.

And that's it for right now. This is my last weekend of getting stuff out of my old apartment and storage, and after that I can settle back into a regular life again. This move has been a fantastic, not-to-be-missed opportunity for me, but it's been hell, too.

Anyone reading my Bella Diana blog will have noticed that the posts have continued daily without interruption. This was only because the story is already complete, and even so, it wasn't always easy. I've had a lot of nights of unreliable internet connection, and you know things are bad when it's hard to post even stuff that's already been written.

But all of that is soon to be behind me. More to come!

Watch This Space!

Acting Debut

Just a quick announcement of the acting debut of Marilyn MonREOW on tonight's installment of Bella Diana

Marilyn plays Butterball, and in spite of the inelegant character name, she pulls off a polished and convincing performance. Marilyn is a class act! I foresee a bright future ahead of her, and look forward to casting her again.

Thanks also goes to friend and fellow scribbler Thomma Lyn, for bringing Marilyn's talents to my attention. Thanks Thomma!

Now go see Marilyn MonREOW in her very first literary role!

Tagged!

Hi. It’s me, Diana Channing. Sorry if I’m a little nervous, but this isn’t where I’m supposed to be. My author got tagged by someone named Karen Alaniz, but she says she’s busy, and I should respond instead. I’m afraid to ask what my author is so busy with. She’s probably thinking up more trouble for me. So I’m going to try to appease her by answering this "meme" thing.

I’m supposed to write eight things about myself. I can’t think what would be interesting about me, but I’ll do my best.

1. I know three languages—English (of course), Spanish, and Apache.
   
2. I never knew my father, who was drafted into the resource wars when I was a baby and didn’t come back.
   
3. I got my first gun when I was eight. It was a birthday gift from my grandfather, and he taught me to hunt small game near our rancho. This was something he used to do with my Uncle Nick, who was killed in the resource wars.
   
4. My grandmother hardly ever left the house, although she didn’t use to be that way. She was in the town of Macrina the day of the big food riot and barely escaped with her life. After that she was always nervous and preferred to stay indoors and knit or sew.
   
5. After what they call the Valle Redondo Massacre, I went to live with my neighbor, Amalia Channing, and her adopted boy, Will. Neither of them are kin to me, but Amalia encouraged me to call her Auntie, and Will let me call him my brother. I had no more living relatives, so it helped to have a family, even if it was one we made up.
   
6. We lived for three years on the Apache reservation after leaving Valle Redondo. The Apaches owed Auntie’s family a favor, since her sister Carina was a veterinarian and had cared for their animals without hardly ever charging them for it. But once the Nativist faction got control of the tribe, we had to leave because we had no native blood.
   
7. There’s a folk song about me, but it’s not true.
   
8. I’m afraid to read what my author is writing about me, but I bet it’s not true, either.
   

Well, that wasn’t so bad. I can think of things I've done that were a lot harder. Naming eight interesting people I met on my journey to Kentucky would’ve been more fun, though.

I hope this makes my author happy. I don't know what I ever did to make her hate me, but I want no more trouble with her.

Feedback Requested

This scene in Bella Diana, where Diana and her friends are attacked in the woods, was hard for me to write. If anyone has time to read and comment, I'd appreciate the feedback.

Snippet and Link - It's a Party!

Even in a dystopian future, you gotta have a little fun sometimes. It's a great night for a party at Bella Diana:

Seeing the four girls looking up at him, he struggled with the lock and slid the window open. "What's this?"

"Happy birthday!" Diana said.

He gave her a confused smile. "It's not my birthday."

"So? We figured you must've had one sometime."

"Well, yes. That goes without saying."

"So we thought we'd have a birthday party for you."

"Tonight?"

"Why not? Let us in, okay?"

Entire post is here

Character Study: Coyote

Once again modeling off Susan Helene Gottfried and her West of Mars blog, I'm posting a character study, drawn from my writings.

This time, I'm writing about Will and Diana's friend Coyote. He is a secondary character in Bella Diana, gets a few mentions in the first diary of Diana's Diary, and will have a role in Water Bearer.

1. His real name is Joseph.
   
2. He has heard voices for as long as he can remember, but his parents told him that they were just his imagination.
   
3. His parents were killed in a train accident when he was twelve.
   
4. Coyote knew about the accident ahead of time. The voices told him. But he ignored them because they were supposed to be imaginary.
   
5. He has never gotten over his remorse for not warning his parents.
   
6. He copes with his guilt by derailing trains. If he can get his hands on explosives and blow them up, so much the better.
   
7. The funny thing is that Coyote actually likes trains and wants to be an engineer some day.
   
8. Coyote considers himself crazy. After all, sane people don’t hear voices!
   
9. The voices are always correct, but they don’t always tell him things in a timely manner or in a way he understands.
   
10. He joined Unitas because he was getting too well known around the rail lines. He doesn’t get to destroy trains as often now, but at least he has armed protection while he does it.
    
11. Before he joined Unitas, he had never been with a girl. When he found out that the pretty blonde spy and camp supporter, Macy, was a former brothel worker, he purchased her services.
    
12. Macy was the first person to really believe in him and the voices.
    
13. He loves her for this, and he’ll wait as long as he has to for her to love him back.
    
14. After all, he’s crazy. Or so he thinks.
    

Character Study: Will Channing

With a nod to Susan Helene Gottfried and her West of Mars blog, I’ve decided to post occasional character studies, drawn from my writings.

I’m starting with loyal but stubborn Will Channing, from my dystopian novels. He is a peripheral character in Tin Soldier, a main character in Bella Diana, and gets a few mentions in the first diary of Diana's Diary. He also features prominently in the planned final book, Water Bearer.

1. Will isn’t technically an orphan. He has no reason to think his parents are dead. He just hates them.
   
2. When he was seven his parents hired him out him to a rancher who was a known child molester. He figured if he did a good job, he would be left alone. This worked at first, until it quit working.
   
3. Will ran away and spent the next few years traveling and getting by as best he could.
   
4. He coped with his memories of molestation by protecting the girls he met on the streets. This made him feel strong and in control of his own destiny.
   
5. At the time Donovan Sloan caught him picking pockets in the town of Macrina, Will was caring for a young orphan named Tasha. He referred to her as his sister, even though she wasn’t.
   
6. Donovan took Will and Tasha to live with Amalia and her sister Carina in Valle Redondo. After nearly four years on the streets, Will didn’t adapt very well to having rules and lessons.
   
7. Everything changed when Will met the neighbor girl, Diana. They were close in age and shared the same interests, but she was smarter and didn’t need Will’s protection. He found this so surprising that he was smitten, although he was too young to realize it.
   
8. Will learned how to read only because Diana liked to send him notes and he wanted to know what they said.
   
9. When the government mercenaries came to Valle Redondo, Will saved Diana’s life but couldn’t save her family.
   
10. Will started calling Amalia “Mother,” as a gesture of respect.
    
11. He took Amalia’s last name as his own, even though she never adopted him in any legal fashion because the secession and civil war made it too confusing to figure out which “government” was the “real” one.
    
12. Because Diana was so traumatized at the loss of her mother and grandparents, Will allowed her to call him “brother,” or “shilah” in the language of the small Apache tribe they sheltered with after they left the valley. He thought she’d get better faster if she felt like she still had family.
    
13. By the time Will was old enough to realize that he was in love with her, Diana had been calling him “brother” for so long she could think of him in no other way. But he won't accept that.
    
14. Will isn’t introspective, and he isn’t a man of ideas. But he can recognize these traits in others and he respects them.
    
15. Will is loyal and reliable, almost to a fault. These traits inspire confidence when he is in a leadership role.
    
16. These same qualities turn to stubborn blindness in his dealings with Diana, who won’t follow his lead in the one thing that really matters to him—building a future together as husband and wife.
    

Scrapblog!

(Note: This post is cross-posted to my main blog.)



Check this out-- online scrapbooking! I wish I hadn't found out about this. I'll be wasting a lot of time here!

And in other news, Thomma is at it again. This time she gave me a cool little award:






All this in spite of the fact I still owe her a meme! Now that's a real friend!

Random Things About Me as a Writer

I stole and modified this meme from Thomma!

1. I wrote my first book when I was six. It was a guide to flowers, lovingly illustrated with crayons on manilla paper and professionally bound using my very own “tot” stapler.
   
2. I wrote my second book when I was in sixth grade. It was a rambling, mostly plotless space epic. Hey, space stories were “in” back then!
   
3. The first book I really think of as my “first” is one I wrote while I was in grad school. There’s something about statistics class that makes my brain flee to creativity as a self-defense measure, in rather the same way an animal will gnaw off its own foot to get out of a trap. I outlined my novel in stats class and actually saw it through to completion. It was based on the people I met and experiences I had working in the restaurant/nightclub business. It’s a fun story, but so badly written I can hardly stand to read it now.
   
4. I like writing “long.” Forcing myself to write anything under 5,000 words is a challenge.
   
5. I hate writing poetry, although I sometimes wonder if I should force myself to practice it, since it might make my prose better.
   
6. Characters and dialogue come easy for me. Plot less so.
   
7. I like editing. When I’m having trouble moving forward in a story, going back and editing the last few paragraphs often helps put me on track.
   
8. I like to use a plot outline. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, and I never end up following it exactly, but if I have no outline at all, my plot will wander and go nowhere at all.
   
9. I don’t use character charts or character trait lists, except very occasionally for minor characters. My main characters never need them—they’re too busy telling me about themselves.
   
10. I mostly write late at night. I like the time after Dan has gone to bed and the critters are settled in. The world is quiet. I know no one is going to interrupt me, and I can immerse myself in the story.
    
11. I love those times when my characters start doing things on their own. It feels like I’m watching a movie in my head and just writing down what I see and hear. Only fellow writers seem to understand this.
    
12. I get my best writing ideas in boring situations, like meetings and classes.
    
13. I’ve been writing stories based in a dystopian American Southwest for several years now.
    
14. My character Diana has her own web presence. She will answer questions on “her” blogs, if she knows the answers.
    
15. I have a new blog fiction idea that would be in a contemporary setting and have a lot of “extras,” such as video, artwork, podcasts, etc. But I can’t do it alone and right now my partner on this project (read: husband) is dragging his feet.
    
16. More than anything, I like sharing what I write. Posting things on my blog and illustrating them is oddly satisfying.
    

Fiction, Blog Fiction, and Just Thoughts

I’ve decided to go ahead and post all of "Bella Diana." I don’t think I can sell it because it doesn’t fit a market niche, so why not? I’m enjoying posting and illustrating it, and words and images are, first and foremost, for sharing. Putting it out there is also breaking the hold that this story has had on me ever since I started it. I don’t know why it's been so hard for me to move on from this particular story, but it has been. Even the Diana’s Diary blog, which is a sequel, didn’t help. But as soon as I started posting Bella Diana, the spell was broken and I could start to entertain other writerly thoughts.

Thoughts like what to do with "Tin Soldier." Even though it takes place in the same dystopian world and contains many of the same characters as Bella Diana, I think "Tin Soldier" is marketable. It needs one more good round of cuts and tightening up (got a few more darlings to kill!) and I think I’ll be ready to jump back on the query-go-round with it.

I’m also toying with other ideas for novels, I have a couple of short stories I’d like to tweak and pitch to the e-zines, and I’m thinking of creating a blog fiction clearinghouse site. The ones that are out there aren’t very good. What’s needed is a site that not only has links, but brief descriptions, viewer ratings and info about frequency of posting, last posting date, and status: in progress, lapsed, complete, in hiatus, etc.

So I’ve got lots of ideas milling around in my head right now!

As for Bella Diana, I’m doing daily postings, and will probably continue to do so until it’s all up. I know I said “never again” in my Lessons Learned post after finishing the “first diary” portion of Diana’s Diary, but this is a little different. With Diana’s Diary, I had no idea most nights what I was going to write, and I really burned the midnight (ahem- 3AM) oil on that one! But "Bella Diana" is complete, and I’ve got a lot of posts waiting in the queue.

So just like with Diana’s Diary, I won’t be leaving any readers in the lurch!

Guest Blogging at Allie's

I'm a little late posting this here, but I'm Wednesday's guest blogger on Allie Boniface's blog! Drop by and take a look!

New Writing Blog

I’ve created yet another blog!

I’ve decided to post one of my novels as an online serial novel It’s the novel that precedes Diana’s Diary, and I’m illustrating it, just like I did the diary.

So here it is: Bella Diana. Take a look and let me know what you think. I’ll start posting next chapters in another day or two. The novel is complete, so unless I change my mind about putting it out there for free, there will be regular installments every couple of days or so.

Note: This post is cross-posted on my main blog.

Outtake

This is the final scene of my WIP and became the lead-in to my Diana's Diary fiction blog. Since I'm heading out of town, it seemed an appropriate entry. I'll be back in two weeks, and in the meantime, check out my daily travels and pictures on my Vacation Blog. See you soon!

Diana saddled her horse in the pre-dawn darkness. She strapped on her gear—rucksack, canteens, food, tarp and blankets. She checked that everything was properly balanced and tied on tight. When she picked up the bridle and went to slip the bit into Flecha’s mouth, the horse shook her head.

“You know what this is about, don’t you?” Diana rubbed Flecha’s nose and tried again. This time the mare took the bit.

She led her into the yard, looking around, as if someone might come after her and ask her to reconsider. But it was still too early, and this close to Christmas, Amalia probably thought she had changed her mind. It would be a cold journey, but there wasn’t much snow. The drought was good for something, at least.

Diana headed north on a little-used trail through the woods. This path would take her away from the better-maintained trails on the south side of the mountain. It wasn’t likely anyone would follow, since the school had no one with both the ability and the inclination to track her.

The trail wound up through the trees, and with only her flashlight to pick out the hazards, it was slow going until the sun came up and the morning light filtered through the pines and bare branches of the aspens. Mid-morning found her near the peak, a fork in the road before her and the empty northern valley spread out below. And now, what to do? Diana reined in and nibbled a few piñones from a pouch at her waist.

She had lied to Amalia. She had no plan. Or rather, she had several, and all of them frightened her. Whatever road she chose, whether back to the school, south to Cobre, west to Castaño, or north to nowhere, the things she would give up would be tremendous. As soon as she urged her mare forward, no matter what her direction or intent, the decision would be made, perhaps irrevocably.

She considered the matter so long that she grew stiff and cold. Finally she shook herself. She couldn’t sit here forever at the summit. She had to choose. And was there really any such thing as forever? As long as she remained alive, she could remake her life over and over, until she got it right. If you couldn’t change and re-do, re-imagine your whole existence, what was the point in carrying on? Life would just be one great tunnel to nowhere. And surely it wasn’t that.

Diana jerked on the reins. “Come on, Flecha. It’s a big world.”

The Wisdom of Mark Twain

I followed this link from someone’s blog today, and found it both amusing and thought-provoking.

Literary fashions come and go. Creative dialogue tags, long descriptive passages sans action, and phonetically-rendered dialogue are just a few fashions from an earlier era that are about as popular today as whalebone corsets and celluloid collars. But even though he wrote for different audience tastes, ol’ Sam Clemens had a good grasp of the basics:

From Twain’s critique of James Fenimore Cooper:

There are nineteen rules governing literary art. . .

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. The require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it.

8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14. Eschew surplusage.

15. Not omit necessary details.

16. Avoid slovenliness of form.

17. Use good grammar.

18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Some things about writing are truly universal!

I would venture to say that as writers and critters, we should be careful to distinguish between critique of style vs critique of the “bones” of the story. If someone has read your entire story (as opposed to an outtake) and says, “I have trouble believing s/he would do that,” you might have a serious problem on your hands. But a comment about “too many adverbs” is stylistic. It's a recommendation that you read up on current literary fashions in your genre, and does not necessarily mean your work is fundamentally flawed.

The full text of Twain’s comments is here, and worth a read.

Gotta love that man!

Market vs Art, Revisited

Among the many nuisances of having well-meaning but industry-ignorant friends is that they labor under the delusion that good writing alone will lead to publication. They think if you can string words together long enough to write a novel, you are a Good Writer, your Publishing Success is assured, and any doubts you may have about breaking into the business are merely evidence of Bad Attitude or Poor Self-Esteem.

Well, here it is straight from literary agent Jessica Faust at Bookends, LLC:

Publishing is not about selling a good book. Publishing is about selling a book that will sell, and rarely does that have to do entirely with how good the book is.

So there. It's a minefield out there, and being given a rah-rah pep talk isn't helpful. What a writer really needs is an honest critique and help seeing where their artistic vision fails to align with current market trends in style and content.

Mindless boosterism should be left to professionals. . . like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

Thinking Bloggers and Thoughts

The incomparable Thomma gave me a Thinking Blogger award! I don't know why (she must have been desperate), but thanks, Thomma!

I don’t do as much thinking and posting here as I probably could, but I’ve been mulling over a worldbuilding issue for awhile, and now is as good a time as any to commit my thoughts to pixels.

Any fiction setting requires some degree of worldbuilding, although the term is used most often in conjunction with science fiction and fantasy because of the complexity of the undertaking. But creating a future version of our own world poses its own set of problems. And setting my stories in a low-tech, post-peak oil future presented some special difficulties for me in terms of character development.

Each of us in American culture makes certain cultural assumptions about the people we meet. We assume a shared knowledge base that includes at least a passing familiarity with Romeo and Juliet, World War II, Gilligan’s Island, the Rolling Stones and pizza, just for starters. There’s a shared understanding that nearly everyone you meet attended a school where children sit at desks in neat rows and learn math, history, science and English. We take it for granted that everyone has been to the movies, watched TV, talked on the phone, ridden in a car, and used a computer.

But in my fictional world, none of these things can be taken for granted for any character under the age of fifty. Now what?

For some of my worldbuilding, I’ve been able to draw on the past: how did people go about growing and preserving food before electricity, for example? But placing such things as iPods in the living memory of my oldest characters posted a dilemma no writer of Victoriana ever faces. Not since the collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe has there been a loss of technology on a grand scale. What would it be like to live through such a happening, or to be the grandchild of someone who lived through it? What would it be like to never have been to school and to never be sure if your radio will pick up a signal today, knowing that your grandmother went to university and had hundreds of TV stations broadcast into her home by satellite? Would you be capable of understanding your grandmother’s experience, or would it sound like a fairy tale?

It’s been a constant challenge to develop characters who are smart, competent and savvy, yet distressingly ignorant of things we take for granted in our own world. In some ways it would be easier to create a true fantasy world because I wouldn’t then have to wrestle with questions like: Should he know who Abraham Lincoln was? Would she recognize a zebra when she saw one, or would she think it was a striped horse?

What would a young, uneducated person raised in the desert think upon seeing their first picture of a lighthouse or the ocean?

Will and Diana found scorpions and birds' nests in the room, but were more interested in the dusty pictures on the walls. "Here's what we need in this country," Diana said, examining a seascape. "Look at all that water! Where do you think it came from?"

"A flood, maybe?"

"Like Noah and the Ark?" Diana considered. "It looks even bigger than the lake we camped at last year. You think it's a real place?"

Will shrugged. "No telling. If I had paint and knew what to do with it, I suppose I could make a picture of anything, whether it was real or not."

I have no words of wisdom on worldbuilding. It’s tricky. It’ll make you crazy. But it can also be fun because it’s your own world and you’re in charge. Shut off the computer, walk out the door, and all bets are off. But right here, right now, the world is yours.

Blogging Writers Who Make Me Think:

Written Wyrdd
Paca True
Allie Boniface
December Quinn
Paperback Writer

Note: I'm not tagging anyone, per se, since so many folks in my circle have already been tagged and I can no longer remember who got tagged and who didn't!

Plot. . . or Not?

I’ve had plot on the brain for awhile now, and Thomma’s recent post on the subject has given me food for thought.

I usually outline my novels. Not grand, detailed outlines that serve as straightjackets, but guidelines. It's like giving my characters a map and saying, “Here’s where you should end up, and here are some places I recommend you stop along the way.” Then I sit back and let them figure out their own journey, only stepping in if they look like they’re getting too far off track. A stop in Denver while on the way from New York to Los Angeles is fine. But a sudden whim to see Quebec is suspect.

You get the idea.

Unfortunately, the story I’ve been working on for the past year (has it been that long???) has given me fits due to the way I jumped into it without much of a plan. What’s worse, I wasn’t even entirely clear what the story was about. Was it a revenge story? Was it romance? Was it anti-romance? The theme changed several times, and the unsurprising result was a tale that didn’t seem to know what it was supposed to tell. I had two major plot arcs, and they didn’t compliment each other, making for no clear overarching theme.

Yay, me.

I put the first draft aside and spent five months on the Diana’s Diary project, hoping that if I better understood what happened to my favorite character after the action of my meandering WIP, I could go back with a clearer head and clean it up.

No such luck.

What to do? Clearly I needed to pick a plot and stick with it. But plotting has always been my nemesis. I can ramble cheerfully along for page after page, developing characters that never do much of anything.

So I read Thomma’s post, and it just so happened that I had read something elsewhere (maybe on Absolute Write) that had me thinking along the same lines. Since plot was already taking up a lot of space in my head, I forced myself to really confront the issue this weekend. And much to my surprise, the problem wasn’t plot at all. The reason I couldn’t develop a coherent plot was because I lacked a coherent. . .

Theme.

Yep. That was it. I couldn’t make up my mind what the story was about, so of course I couldn’t decide how to accomplish it. Duh.

So I think I see a way clear to cleaning this story up. This isn't the novel I thought it was, but I think I secretly knew that all along.

The timing of this revelation is perfect, since I’m going out of town in a couple of weeks. I’ve found that I don’t get much new writing done while on vacation, but I like to edit and tinker.

I'm excited about this new development in my writing. It feels good to know what the heck I'm doing!

Graphic Novels

Years ago when Maus came out, I bought both volumes and thought the “comic book” style an interesting choice. But it didn’t occur to me that there was a whole world of graphic novels out there, and pre-internet, I wouldn't have known where to look for them, anyway.

Well, thank goodness for the internet, I guess. I read a review of Y: The Last Man and started reading the series in February. Dan and I are now hopelessly addicted.

We’ve also bought the first book in the Preacher series, which I’ve heard from none other than the fabulous December Quinn is well worth my time.

I wasn’t much into comic books as a kid, but here I am at the advanced age of forty, enthusiastically hooked on their adult equivalent. This is especially funny when one considers that my favorite type of reading material is non-fiction, especially history, linguistics and sociology.

And now I’ve gone and lent one of my Last Man books to a friend at work. As a hostage for its return, he lent me one of his favorite Batman graphic novels. Oh, dear. If I go getting hooked on superheroes at my age, it’s all over.

Outtake #1

Part of a chapter I removed from my WIP because I didn't feel it did enough to advance the plot. The setting is a post-apocalyptic, low-tech desert Southwest, where drought, diseases and civil war are ongoing. Will is the only person in this scene not using a code name. They young women selected names based on what sounded cool from the little bit they could read on old billboards and ads.

Will found Tiffany and Ikea in the shade of a tree, mending arrows. A few feet away, two solar cookers shone in the afternoon sun. "What's for dinner?" he asked, sitting across from the girls and picking up an arrow.

"Put that down unless you plan on fixing it," Ikea said.

Will took a closer look. The fletching was frayed, so he took out his knife and got to work. "So what's for dinner?" he asked again.

"Beans," said Tiffany. "And hominy."

"That's it?"

"Well, later we're going to look for something we can make a salad with," Ikea offered. "And Galileo is keeping an eye out for game while he's on watch. But--" she held an arrow shaft at eye level, checking that it was straight. "I figure if we just assume it'll be beans and hominy, then if it's something better we'll be pleasantly surprised."

"Which is better than being unpleasantly disappointed," her sister added.

"I suppose so." Will rummaged among the feathers and selected a straight-looking one with tight barbs. He held it against the shaft, frowned, and then set to work splitting and trimming it.

"So did Coyote get to see his train?" Ikea asked.

"Yeah. And it made him happy, even though he didn't get to derail it or blow it up."

The girls exchanged bemused, knowing looks.

"I just wish I understood why, if he likes trains so much, he feels like he has to destroy them. It doesn't make sense."

"Macy says the train has something to do with how he lost his parents, but she doesn't know any details."

He checked the trimmed feather against the shaft again and reached for the pot of glue. "Well, he's the new guy, so I suppose if he doesn't get himself killed, we'll find out eventually."

"Macy says she’s going to ask."

"Why? So she can harass him about it?"

Ikea looked at Will in surprise. "She wouldn't do that. She likes him."

"Could've fooled me. I know she likes his money, but she only fights with him the rest of the time."

"It's just their way."

"Like showing how much you like trains by destroying them?"

The girls fell silent and Will turned to see Coyote walking toward them across the patchy grass. He threw himself onto the ground beside their stack of arrows. "So what are we doing for fun this afternoon?"

"Fixing arrows," Will said. "Or making new ones if you prefer."

Coyote looked at the arrow in Will's hand, scowled and rolled over on his back, pillowing his head in his clasped fingers. "It's too nice a day to work," he said, closing his eyes against the sun. "We did some hard riding yesterday. This is a good afternoon to take a nap."

The others looked at him in dismay. "You took a nap just the other day," Will pointed out. "There'll be plenty of time for sleeping, even with taking our turns on watch."

“I've got other plans for tonight," Coyote said. "I need to get my rest now."

"What are you planning on doing tonight?" Ikea asked cautiously.

Coyote mumbled something without bothering to open his eyes.

"Did you check with Galileo?"

"I ain't no little kid who has to ask permission for everything."

"But we're soldiers," Will said. "We have to work together. And that means telling each other what we're doing and making sacrifices for the group, and --"

Coyote sat up. "And aren't you one to talk? Who found who sneaking around in the woods without permission a couple nights ago?" He got to his feet. "If anyone needs me for something important, wake me up. Otherwise I'll see you at dinner."

After he had gone, the three looked at each other in confusion. "Think we should say something to Galileo?" Ikea asked.

"We can figure this out ourselves," Will said. "We'll look like a bunch of tattling kids if we go running to Galileo every time Coyote acts weird."

"And he acts weird all the time," Tiffany agreed. "We'll keep an eye on him and see if we can figure out what he's up to."

Ikea selected a feather from the pile and squinted at it. Okay," she sighed. "But I sure hope it's not something dangerous. You never know with him."

Fiction Blogging - Redux?

I’m thinking about starting another fiction blog. I had a lot of fun with my first one, and I’m sort of between books right now. I have two that I’m editing, and two that are in the planning stages. That leaves me with nothing to really write in the evening, although I’m doing a lot of writing-related research.

I have a story from several years ago that never quite worked, and like Diana’s Diary, it’s a road trip story. My biggest problem when I wrote it as a novel was that I never succeeded in getting deep enough into my main characters’ heads to adequately explain their motivations. A blog format certainly solves that problem! I’ve already written a few posts, but I haven’t yet created a blog. I’m waiting to see if this feels like something I can sustain before I go forward with it.

If I do it, though, I’m not committing to daily postings like I did with Diana’s Diary. That just about killed me. Besides, I’ve got a vacation coming up next month!